Black Hat

Black Hat

Black hat is a common term these days like it was for old Westerns.  There was the hero or white hat and then the villain or black hat.  The hero always won and so on and so forth.  Well, when it comes to online marketing and other activities related to making money on the web the black hat wins just as often as the white hat and when a black hat wins it is usually big time.

The whole idea of a black hat originated as hackers emerged out of the generations when computers became available to the masses.  These geeks studied manuals, systems, anything they could get their hands on and mastered the machines even if there were no manuals in some cases.  It used to be that breaking into a machine was a sign of mastery.  Others would destroy once they gained access.  Some would post a note, something like “I broke into your box, this is the exploit I used or how I did it…etc.”  These days the black hats are as strong as ever.  We have crackers, hackers, black hat SEO techniques, tricks, and all sorts of things to help muddy up the picture.  And it still is far from clear.

The moniker of black hat tended to follow those who had a penchant for destruction, deception, or theft.  White hats were the saviors but recently there has been the evolution of another group so-called gray hats.  The grey hat is like that chaotic neutral character from your old D&D games.  You never know which way these people might go—sometimes they act like a white hat would and other times they may do something illegal either for good or ill.  For example, a white hat will let you know they are going to break into your system (you may pay this person) and will tell you exactly how they did it.  A black hat is liable to just break in, maybe steal some data and delete the entire thing and sell it to the highest bidder.  The grey is likely to break in and then leave undetected.  They may or may not do something illicit, though the act of breaking into a system without warning is usually illegal.

At any rate, a black hat isn’t necessarily a bad path either.  These folks usually have an unending thirst for knowledge and are often extremely intelligent and have their own motivations other than simply mayhem.  The ones who make headlines tend to have the wrong motivation but embracing aspects of black hat techniques and knowledge is not necessarily a bad idea especially when it comes to marketing on the internet.  You need every advantage you can get and you also have to believe that your competition within or without the niche will be doing whatever they can to beg, borrow, or steal their way to the top too.  This goes for big companies and not just one-man affiliate jockeys either.  It pays to know the terrain.  And it can pay out big time.